That's for the Galactica! May she rest in peace! She announced over the wireless. She was more than aware that one of the last relics of the Cylon War, her Father's flagship for much of that conflict, and Old Mel's technical flagship, was being mothballed later, and she wanted to pay her own respects. The mic-click spoke volumes about Killian's thoughts, and Artemis wasn't one to brag over the wireless; that could wait until they were back on Old Mel.

She followed Riptide's orders and steadily brought her Viper back in, finishing with a textbook landing; she made a point of making sure as much as possible no deckhand ever has to punch out divets due to a heavy stick on her part.

"Right, sir," Joran replies. He sinks back into his seat, the calm finally returning to his face. "Quite right. I'll let the Major decide. And until then, I'll just be... 'Chief'. It's going to take some getting used to, I think."

Turning back to the ECO station, Joran tries to strike up a different conversation.

It's lonely in the deep black of space. Emptiness all around the little pod of life and light. The fragile eggshell of steel and plastic that keeps a man alive in a harsh environment. A single system failure, a careless moment, and the cold, hard, uncaring vacuum will rush in to severe your soul's connection to this life, and leave you answering to the judgement of the Gods.

But when you're about to make the biggest haul of your life, it's not so bad.

The tip about the old Colonial Arming Station, CAS-42, had been spot on. Drifting quietly on the outskirts of the Helios Alpha system, a small bit of rock in the Persephone/Helios Aplha L3 point and out of anyone's casual observation, the little gem of an arming station had yielded to Erik Charon's touch like a long-missed lover.

Once inside, the choices were prime. With access to vaults of personal weapons, ammunition, ship-grade munitions and Fleet-issue emergency gear, Erik was able to stuff his shuttle's cargo hold to capacity. It was long and tiring work for one man, but the reward would be well worth it. Millions of cubits...

Now, Erik drifts slowly in on a ballistic course, keeping his emissions low and staying under-the-DRADIS. Going in-system was easy. Simply slowing the orbital velocity relative to the star lets the giant mass of glowing plasma suck you in-system. Hardly even a navigational challenge. No sense in being picked up by a Colonial patrol in a restricted area. It would make all that effort of sneaking out here and loading up on goodies wasted. It just requires a little patience.

Erik slowly moved around the shuttle’s flight compartment in his sweat drenched flight suit, his helmet sitting on the co-pilot’s seat facing him as if a stalwart companion. There had been little time to change after moving everything and the shower facilities were fairly limited on shuttles arms station. It didn’t matter, the smell from his suit this morning smelt like victory. Well sweaty victory.

For a second, Erik was worried he had forgotten it on the station, but then his face lit up as his victory stash was located. He moved his helmet off the co-pilot’s seat and onto the floor as the small bag was yanked out from under the seat and placed in the helmet’s place with a distinct tink. Slowly Erik removed the contents: A fine bottle of Caprican wine, a single cigar in a sealed case, and a wrapped wine glass.

Erik uncorked the bottle; he had been saving this particular bottle for just such an occasion, a treat to be enjoyed after a job well done and there had been so few such occasions lately. This load was going to make him rich enough that he could settle down for a minute and buy a few replacement bottles without much effort. Slowly, the dark and richly red liquid began to fill the glass making Erik’s mouth water in anticipation.

Erik took a deep breath over the glass, letting the woodsy aroma fill his nostrils before setting the glass down on the control panel. His mouth continued to water, but he didn’t want to drink the wine just yet, it would be much better after it had been given the chance to breath.

As he waited for his wine Erik began to slowly unroll the cigar’s container, his eyes glancing across the control panel. He needed to check his course and make sure everything was going smoothly. His casual glance over the controls showed no change and Dradis appeared free of contacts. The Shuttle's ballistic course had been laid in hours ago, now Erik was left with the task of entertaining himself and randomly checking dradis to make sure nothing had moved into his path.

As he completed the quick check to confirm there was nothing in the shuttle’s path, Erik finished unwrapping the Caprican Imperial and pulled out a combat knife to sliced the end off. Combat Knives weren’t particularly valuable cargo, but he picked one up as a memento of his major score.

Erik felt his pockets, attempting to locate his lighter with no avail, his expression turning somewhat sour. “Great, you can never find your lighter when you need it. What else could go wrong?” Erik rose from the pilot’s seat and begun the annoying search for the lighter he had obviously misplaced and preventing the celebration from getting under way.

"Well, I guess you'll get a chance, then. But you better watch out. Fraternizing with the trainees can get you a bunk in the brig." Hector skirted the edge of the asteroid belt on his way back, only having to dodge the occaisional stray rock. "Ok, Chief, one question. Just because the Mel is a Viper training platform, you gonna skimp on the Raptor maintenance? Patrick was a damn good man and I hate to speak ill of the dead, Gods forgive me, but more than once I had to hunt him down to get him to order parts."

"Skimp on the Raptors?" Joran asks in surprise. He hadn't thought that Chief Patrick would be the kind of man to let that happen on his hangar deck. "Of course not! I will admit, I am excited about seeing more of my Mark VI's in action, and see how they hold up against the 'superior' Mark VII's. But there is a reason that we haven't changed the Raptors' basic design in over 30 years - it WORKS. And I plan to KEEP them working. Without the Raptors to keep the fleet running, what good are the Vipers?"

You can just hear the disdain in his voice, when he speaks of the Mark VII Vipers. If the pilots of the older model Vipers couldn't learn how to pilot mine, then obviously they didn't need to be piloting Vipers in my fleet! And all the babysitting equipment on the VII just makes it a vulnerable piece of space junk - thank you First-class Mundy for THAT little lesson. Frakking intel spooks and their frakking ins with the chain of command...

Hector smiled inwardly. So he had exagerated a little. Maybe once he had to ask the old Chief about some parts and maybe once he had caught the tech taking a short cut. That was then. He had a little chance right now to get the new Chief thinking Raptor and that was a chance he wasn't going to pass up. If he felt a little guilty about it maybe that could be used to Hector's advantage. Or rather, Hector's plane's advantage. "Just saying. The Viper's get so much attention, we kinda get left out. Until we have to pick up some nugget with a bad case of dumbasses. Then it's 'Why didn't you fix that before?' and 'What do you mean you're waiting on parts?' You know?"

Continuing the conversation with his new officer, Burke answers, "Yes, ser. The troops are a good bunch. Young, all of 'em, but dedicated. An' we have our own medic, so we don' overburden Lieuten'nt Jenks."

A few meters later, and the two are obviously in Marine Country. There's enough space on Meleager for a full Platoon of twelve squads split into four sections, but only six squads are assigned to the aging ship, allowing the half-platoon much more space than most billets. Burke gestures to a hatch, "T' assembly room's here, ser."

On entering, a thundering shout of "TEN-Hutt!" echoes through the chamber, and the boot heels of twenty-eight marines slam together as the group comes to attention.

Armed and outfitted for shipboard duty (though Fuller knows that a host of other gear is stored in various weapons lockers and the central armory), the Marines are in standard black fatigues, helmets, light armor, and harness. Each of the two Sections is headed by a Sergeant with one of the new P90 SMGs. Each of the three Squad Leaders in each squad bears an SMI 80 Carbine. The rest of each squad is rounded out with an SMI 86, and two SMI 80A6's, one fitted with an underbarrel launcher. Everyone also has a Picon 5-7 sidearm on their thigh.

To the right stands Fuller's new aide, Sergeant Terrance

Distant Relation.

Adama, who gave the order to attention. Adama is armed with a D5 shotgun and Five-Seven sidearm. Beside him is the platoon's medic, Corporal Sara Crane. She is armed only with a Picon 5-7, and a copious number of reloads for it.

Fenq automatically returns the salute from Mundy, but then his face sours as the PO speaks. "Intelligence Briefing, Mundy? Did someone forget to tell you what we do around here? We train fracking nuggets to fly planes. We don't fight. We don't have anything to fight, thank the Gods."

He snorts, "The Major will be on duty at 0800. That gives you," he checks the chronometer on his wrist, "Thirty-nine minutes to find something useful to do. Unless you don't think your briefing can wait, and then you're welcome to go tap on the hatch of her quarters."

Fenq shakes his head and turns away, dismissing Mundy without bothering to use any words.